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tv   MONEY With Melissa Francis  FOX Business  December 2, 2013 5:00pm-6:01pm EST

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receiving a drone-delivered package, one said: i'd be worried that the drone wouldn't exact the package in exactly the right place. melissa: it's a bird, a plane, it's the cat food you ordered from amazon. amazon is planning to use drones to make deliveries, flying robots used to sound far fetched but not anymore. what does it mean for life and your money? because even when they say it's not, it's always about "money." ♪ ♪ melissa: in the skies and across the airwaves, drones are on everyone's radar today from amazon's flying deliveries to the latest plot twists on homeland to video of the violent protests in thailand. if you've been watching tv in the past 24 hours, you know that drones are everywhere.
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amazon's ceo jeff bezos is flying past the competition. what could possibly go wrong? let's ask tech expert todd hazelton, naval analyst chris harmer and our very own bruce turkel. pez southeast himself said one of the biggest problems is we don't want one of these things crashing into people's heads. to me, there's a lot of logistical challenges. those things, you won't even be able to walk around. >> right. there's a lot of problems. one, what happens when they hit buildings and fall down on people? it could possibly happen and probably will. what happens in stormy weather? three, where do you drop these packages, especially in a city, probably one of their target markets, when usually you come out and and meet the deliveryman, sign it -- melissa: right, and there's the
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faa. chris, when you watched the video on "60 minutes" last night, it was the very nice landing, the drone jebtly placed down -- gently placed down its package, it was no trouble at all. is this how you see it working, or are there some challenges? >> there's a lot of challenges here. as a helicopter pilot, as a retired naval aviator, we had a saying if something is not going wrong, it's about to go be wrong. melissa: very optimistic of you. >> technologically, yes, you could do this today, periodly on a one-time -- immediately on a one-time case. you can't do this with hundreds or thousands of drones making multiple deliveries. and the biggest hurdle is the regulations involved. there is no regulatory framework for this type of commerce to take place in. technology always takes place before the regulatory framework. let me give you one quick historical example, orville and wilbur wright figure out how to fly, it wasn't until 1926 when
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the federal government established the safety and regulatory framework that allowed commercialization of aviation. we just don't -- melissa: yeah, for sure we don't know any of these thing, but, bruce, when i saw in this, you were the first person that i thought of because i hought what fantastic marketing and advertising. if these little things are flying all over the place, and shockingly they all say amazon prime. what a marketing opportunity, right? >> jeff besos got on national television during the most important shopping week of the year and came up with something so outrageous that we're all talking about it. i mean -- melissa: so do you think it's fake? do you think it's just a scam, it's just marketing? >> i think the word for it is actually a technical term, it's called hogwash. [laughter] i would order stuff and just sit at home with a baseball bat trying to -- [laughter] no, this was for him to get on television, and we're all talking about amazon. we all think it's the coolest
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thing since sliced bread. i think it's a bunch of -- melissa: is it a ruse? >> i think it might be, and i'm with you on that topic because i was looking through the federal aviation administration's road map for uavs. as a matter of fact, there's three stages. right now it's accommodation, so when you have border patrol or people chasing fires, then you have integration, that's what's happening when they're creating their new legal laws for in this device, robots flying through the air. that's the fife-year period that he was talking about, the next five years. but actually it's evolution. when the faa plans to start allowing more aircraft into the air, into air space, and that's actually 13-15 years out from i now. so i think it's a little crazy to go on the news yesterday and say, hey, we have drones. melissa: but wait, i don't know, guys, last night i was watching tv, and drones were everywhere. it literally didn't matter what you were watching. first i watched "60 minutes," the next show i was watching was
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"homeland," they were going out and going to attack what had gone wrong. spoiler alert, i don't want to ruin it for anybody, but there was a lot of drone involved there, and then you look today and bangkok, thailand, somebody has flown their own drone trying to film and show the rest of the world what's really going on there. i think we have video. the police were trying to shoot down military in the area, excuse me, were trying to shoot down the drones as it was happening, but look at these incredible pictures brought to us by someone's drone. in the past 24 hours, these stories unrelated to each other all about drones. it does seem like drones are everywhere, ask they're kind of taking over. chris, am i crazy? well, on this in particular, am i nuts? >> no, you're correct. it's important to keep in mind that military and law enforcement have very specific, very permissive of rules for their use of drones. commercialization drones is a totally different subject. you're talking about flying these in highly populated area, that's the only place it makes
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sense to use delivery vehicles or uavs as delivery vehicles. you're going to have to look at the nexus between local, state and federal authority, plenty of communities simply say we don't want drones in our neighborhood. they may say we don't want the noise pollution, we don't want the visual pollution. how is that all going to work? the faa has got a lot of work ahead of them -- melissa: which is what brings bruce to his point that this was all an elaborate ruse to get us all talking once again. jeff bezos is a pretty smart guy. do you think that's a what it's all about? is. >> he's the drone ranger. melissa: go ahead -- [laughter] the drone ranger. yeah, so you think that's what it is all about, you didn't look at this and immediately see the marketing opportunity? it could be 1-800-mattress as it goes flying by your window. order pizza now. he could just sell so much space on the side of these drones, i don't know, why not? >> that's not what it's about. it's about getting you to order this year's christmas presents
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right now from amazon. look, if everybody was talking about teleporting, then all of a sudden amazon would be teleporting these gifts to your door. the idea is to get the buzz going. nobody's talking bricks and mortar, are they? that's all we thought it was going to be this season, and now he's changed the conversation. the man is brilliant. the man man has a fantastic marketing ploy. melissa: he is will i can't, and i did buy five things last night. gentlemen, thank you so much. i'll send a drone your way soon. up next, fedex is in the midst of its busiest day ever. do they have time to worry about drones stealing their business? a fedex senior vp is here. i'm going to ask him if he's looking over his shoulder, above his head. whatever it would be. and believe it or not, the holiday season is one of best times of year to land a new job. did you know that? it's shocking. an employment expert is here to tell you why and how, more "money miss coming up. -- money"
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coming up.
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melissa: ready, set, ship. today marks the busiest day in fedex's history, the company expecting 22 million packages to move through the system today.
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that's amazing. investors taking notice, its stock closing at an all-time high today. here now is patrick fitzgerald, senior vice president of fedex services. is everyone busier today, or do you think you're taking market share away from the competition? >> well, it's busy today. i mean, the overall drive in the growth of our busiest day is largely related to e-commerce, but we also have been gaining market share in our fedex ground business. melissa: you know, speaking of market share, i don't know if you heard our last segment, are you worried about drones stealing your business? does that make you nervous? >> no. no, we have a long history of innovating and technology. there's a lot of exciting technology on the horizon. we're certainly looking into a lot of different things. there's state of the art technology in our pickup and delivery and our citation systems today, and that's one of the reasons why we're able to flex our operations and go from average daily volume of 10 million packages to 22 million on a day like today.
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technology and certainly the people, the drivers, the couriers -- melissa: so you would consider drones yourself in the future, that you're so tech-savvy if they were doing it, you would do it too? >> well, we put a lot of focus on technology, but that's not to say that we have any plans. we certainly don't have any drones in the network, and there's no plans related to that specific be technology at this point, but we -- melissa: does it sound ridiculous to you? just one last question, and i promise we'll leave this subject. does it sound ridiculous to you? you're the master, you're out there doing it. when you see a story like this, do you say that guy is nuts? that would never work? >> speed is important, reliability is important, and when you get to volumes, 22 million packages, for example, to deliver with the speed and the reliability our customers expect, a lot of that is based on our team members, our couriers, our drivers and the people that run our network. melissa: okay. no more drones. you don't want to talk about drones. you have 22 million packages, i
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think i heard you say out there today, more than double your average volume. did you have to hire a lot of people to get that done, are you hiring right now? >> we did. we expect 20,000 additional team members this year, and one of the exciting things for us is those positions, a lot of them will end up turning from seasonal to full time. we're growing internationally, domestically, so a lot of these seasonal positions turn into full-time positions which is great for us and, of course, great for the economy. melissa: do you have any idea roughly what percentage? because that's all the the complaint in the holiday season, people say there's great seasonal work, and, in fact, in our next segment we're talking about how people can really find jobs this time of year that turn out to be permanent. about how many do you think end up being permanent? >> i don't have a specific number percentage, and some of that will depend on our growth as we move into the year and the economy and demand for our services, but it has been consistent that seasonal positions turn into full-time positions for us for the past several years. melissa: we've seen a huge jump in online shopping.
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we saw that even this week as, you know, so many stores went out and opened on thanksgiving, and they did everything they could to get more shoppers into brick and mortar stores. black friday weekend. and still the number of shoppers out there and the amount of money they spent on foot, brick and hour tar, went down. do you see the pick beup in shipping? is all that moving online, or are people just shopping less? what's your take? >> well, the take is that there is growth in holiday retail, and that's a combination of traditional and e-commerce. we're in a position with our broad portfolio where we're able to support customers in an omni-channel fashion. so we're able to if it's store to store, store to home, b to b and even some same-day city, we have a broad portfolio, and we see growth overall, and some of it's just shifting from one channel to the other. but it's a significant advantage for us to be able to work with large customers and even small businesses to be able to provide what they need. melissa: you work with so many
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different partners from ebay to zacks fifth avenue, where do you see the strengths and weaknesses right now? >> i couldn't characterize any particular. i mean, ebay is certainly a strong customer for us and experiencing growth, you mentioned some other, saks, walgreens, there's a lot of strong customers that we have that are using the broad portfolio of fedex services. melissa: anything that's vising to you in there, surprising strength or weakness? >> not any one particular customer that i would point to, but we certainly are seeing a significant increase in demand for our e-commerce and deliveries to homes, and we are expanding our services to be able to support that with things like delivery manager, and now we have our fedex one rate which is flat rate shipping which is very popular for consumers and small businesses. melissa: we had the postmaster general on last week, and he was talking about the deal he made
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with amazon to do sunday deliveries for them. is that a piece of business that they won away from you guys? >> no. no, in fact, that's an offering that if there is significant demand, that's something certainly that fedex could meet, because we do have that broad portfolio. so if there's consumer and customer demand for specific services be it appointment delivery, saturday delivery, sunday delivery, we have a network that will be able to meet that. melissa: do you do sunday deliveries right now? is there a strong demand for that? >> we've done it for certain holidays and special occasions, and we've worked closely with customers. we're in regular dialogue with customers to monitor that need, and we will meet it if demand is there. melissa: patrick fitzgerald, good luck to you. get back to work. >> all right, thank you. melissa: up next, put down your leftovers and send out your resumé. if you're using the holidays as an excuse to stop job searching, you might be missing out on the
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best hiring season of the year. did you know that? career guru tom gimble is here to explain it all. and retailers opened their doors on thanksgiving day and were rewarded with criticism and disappointing sales figures. we're going to ask our "money" panel was it even worth the hassle after all? do you ever have too much "money"? muck. ♪ so i deserve a small business credit card with amazing rewards. with the spark cascard from capital one, i get 2% cash back on ery purchase, every day. i break my back around here. finally soone's recognizing me with unlited rewards! meetings start at 11, cindy. [ male announcer get the spark business card from capital one. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every d. what's in your wallet? i need yr timesheets, larry! yep. got all the cozies. [ grandma ] with n fedex o rate, i could ll a box and ship it r one flat rate.
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melissa: looking for a job? many people think the holidays are a dead zone for job opportunities. well, think again. while you might be sitting on the sidelines, my next guest says it could actually be one of the best times of year to send out your resumé. with me now is tom gimble. why is this a good time of year? it really goes against
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everything that is logical to me. >> well, mostly glad to be with you. the fact of the matter is sometimes you've got to turn the logical paradigm upside down and say if other people are taking time off, this is a time to jump right in and make something happen. and while some people may be taking time off over the holidays, there's other people that have to be there manning the shop, and it's the best time to get ahold of those people. melissa: so as you say, swim in a smaller pool. if you do fill out a job application, there's not a lot of other people doing it unless they're watching right now and they decide to do it, but otherwise you could be the only clever person out there sending your resumé out. >> yeah. and there's a couple different things, right? a lot of times if you're unemployed or if you're unhappy in your jobs or things respect going well for you personally -- aren't going well for you personally, the holidays are a depressing time of year. if you can keep a positive frame of mind, get your resumé out there, if you can network with people and actually work to set up meetings proactively whether
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they're interviews or simply meetings, you're going to be way better off. and you may not get a job during the holidays, but you sure will be a heck of a lot further ahead of people after the first of the year. melissa: you say you can capitalize on the fact that a lot of gatekeepers aren't there. >> yeah. a lot of times the administrative staff takes that time off, the people who are making decisions whether they're closing deals, wrapping up year end, doing budgets, they actually are there. and in this day and age of smartphones and working remotely, people are accessible. so if you take this time off, shame on you. melissa: that's a great reason. what are the best sectors to look in and, you know, one thing that comes to mind is we had a senior vp from fedex on in the last segment, and he was talking about the fact that they hire a lot of seasonal people, and if they work out, they end up keeping them on. is that a common theme this time of year? >> it's really a common theme
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all year round. whether you're doing seasonal help and it's going to convert over to permanent or doing a traditional temporary or consulting job, a lot of companies use that as a trial period to test the tires and see about bringing people on. so it's a great thing. as far as industries, i'm telling you, melissa, right now the economy isn't as bad as people want to make it look. it's not booming, it's not 2004, 2005, but if you're good and you're talented, there are jobs out there for you. the problem is that if you've been a long time unemployed person what you think you're worth and what reality is are two different places, and you've got to adjust. melissa: how do you do that? what's a way to get realistic? >> number one is getting a job when you're long-term unemployed is putting your house on the market. you put a worth on it, and the longest fors on the market, the less desirable it comes because people start to wonder is there a problem with it, and then you start to lower the price of your house. and it's the same thing with you. if you are going after a salary that you think you're worth and you can't get a job offer, you
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may be outpricing yourself in the market. and then you need to look and say am i really skilled, and maybe there is no market for me, and what else can i do. you've got to look at whether it's a different type of education, a different type of training, whether it's using your skill set in a totally different way, but you've got to be accountable to yourself that you may not be as good in the field you were in as you thought you were, and you've got to try something else. melissa: let's people a couple good things to do to get started. you say connect with 15 new contacts on linkedin. does that really work? >> it really does. the key is the problem isn't people sending out linkedin invitations and having people accept them, the real issue is people get lazy, and they don't think, and they stop. once you get those connections made, you need to follow up with those people in a professional way, a phone call or an e-mail, and set up a coffee or a meeting with them just to talk and expand your network face to face. it's very easy for somebody to click the accept button and then discount you from their memory. melissa: few contacts with a total straipger, you know --
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stranger, you know, linkedin -- >> well, it's not necessarily people who are complete strangers, right? if if i'm networking and i find somebody that you're connected with, melissa, and you and i are friends, then i might use you as that conduit to that person. it might just be 15 people you haven't yet connected with. maybe it's shall be you worked with 10 or 15 years ago, and you lost contact with them. melissa: you say apply postings on their web site. >> yeah. a lot of times you want to send out these mass e-mails, and they send out 20 resumés at the same time. -@then you've got to go old schl and type up an individual letter, cover letter ask a resumé tailored for a specific position in a specific company and take this down time in the holidays to really customize a search for a specific position and a specific company. and if you can do that on five or ten different companies, you can really get some good resultsful health mel you also say to attend a networking event which is actually probably easier this time of year. how do you figure out what's
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worth it and what's just a waste of your time during the holiday season when you could be doing something else? what else are you going to be, doing, number one, right? some spending money? melissa: spending time with your kids, volunteering somewhere, volunteering at your kids' schools, cleaning up the house, i don't know. there's a lot of stuff to do. [laughter] but none of those will pay the bills or get you bonuses or raises or help you pay for christmas presents. so let's focus on what you need to do to improve your own situation. and you might go to a networking event and only walk away with one connection. guess what? then it'swell worth it. the key is don't go there to eat, don't go to get froehlich corps -- [laughter] go there with the idea to meet new people and have different things to talk about. you've got to expaneled your horizons dub expand your horizons, and it's a great time to be reading up on current business trends, current -- melissa: like drones, yeah. >> what's that? melissa: like drones.
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you could already have your talking point. >> absolutely. melissa: there you go. of todd gimble, thank you so much and happy holidays to you. >> to you as well. melissa: your black friday war wounds may have healed, but now it's retailers feeling the you are the from lagging sales figures despite staying open on thanksgiving day. was it even worth the trouble? tweet me and tell me what you think. and who made money today? is just in time for the holidays, one kentucky-based entrepreneur is raking in series dough thanks to some good old-fashioned booze. you're not going to believe what he's charging for a bottle. i'm going to stick to my boxed wine, i still love that, thanks. piles of "money" coming up. ♪ ♪ bank 24/7, but there are no branches? 24/7. i'm sorry, i'm just really reluctant to try new things. really? what's wrong with trying new things? look! mommy's new vacuum! what's wrong with tryin(cat screech) you feel that in your muscles? i do... drink water.
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or difficulty breathing or sllowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. melissa: despite the hype, shoppers not gobbling up sales over the black friday weekend. the national retail federation reporting that shoppers spent an average of 4% less compared to last year. was all this hoopla over opening
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on thanksgiving and making employees show up for work not worth it? it's today's money talk, and our panel is all fired up. we have liz dunn, ari -- [inaudible] and dennis kneale. what do you think? we spent all that time talking about walmart, they're so cruel, they're forcing their workers to come in and work on thanksgiving, and then sales are down? dennis, what do you think? >> well, i think it was totally worth opening up on thanksgiving early. i think you look at the numbers, and the national retail federation says 45 million people shopped on thanksgiving day, and that was up 27% from a year -- melissa: brick and mortar stores fell 9%, 9%. according to the national retail federation. >> i'm sorry, we have a data disagreement. this is not true. melissa: i have it right here. >> you know what's amazing? america's the only place in the world where we give thanks on thanksgiving, and then a day later we're killing people trying to get into the walmart. melissa: yeah. that's what makes us special, we're shoppers. we love to get out there and
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spend money, but i don't know if we really did this year. what do you think, liz? >> i think once one big retailer said they were doing it, it was smart for the other retailers to do it because those that were open on thanksgiving garnered more share than those that weren't. melissa: but they're just stealing from each other, i think, is the point. fewer dogs out there, it looked like the streets were packed, but overall there were less people and less money spent in the stores. >> why would you go into a store when you could go online? i mean, i just don't get that. melissa: i thought that -- [inaudible conversations] >> 5% of all retail sales online. health mel what's the answer? >> most of the sales are online, and they're going online. melissa: not most. it's less than half. i mean, still less than -- >> 10% of all retail. [inaudible conversations] >> it's increasing every single year, ask it's not going down. if you can get it shipped by amazon the next day, why not -- >> here's the thing, guys, always, every christmas, every
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christmas season we see all the forecasters hanging crepe saying it's going to be a tough christmas, and you know what? in the end people end up buying. so i try to look for the silver lining, and when sales fall 2.7% thanksgiving versus a year ago and yet guys are selling things on discount, people left the stores -- melissa: is that the problem? is that the problem that they cut their prices so much because the competition so -- >> i trust them to cut to where it helps them, doesn't hurt them. and why is it that the national retail federation, which, my gosh, sales fell 3% this weekend, is not changing its forecast for 4% sales growth for the holiday season? >> well, they do this every year. they kind of hold their forecast until it seems like it's going to be something different, and then the week before they change it. >> they make it up. >> i wouldn't necessarily -- but usually you see black friday as a very strong weekend. that's been a weekend that kind of has taken share over the last several year, so i think these numbers are weak. i don't think it was worth it in total, but i think it was worth it for those retailers that --
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melissa: at the same time -- >> and it's also this cultural phenomenon. and, again, it's only in america people wake up at 2:00 in the morning to camp out and -- melissa: do they? i think they're going online. more and more people -- >> this made me more anxious feeling like i'm running behind -- >> you were the pup tent right behind me. >> i think it overall is stoking more excitement. more people are talking about it, feeling bad that they aren't caught up on more of their holiday shopping. >> it's hype. >> i was doing a little cyber monday today. melissa: but they spent less over the weekend, and the time frame is shorter. >> six fewer shopping days. melissa: right. so if they spent less, it seems like we're not doing as well. >> are you going to be buying fewer gifts for your children? melissa: no, but i never, ever go in a store. and that's really the subject of this segment is that i literally don't buy any christmas presents at all in a store. i don't see the reason. if i buy it online, it goes directly to the person i'm bbying it for. even if i pie it for a family --
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buy it for a family member, i'm buying online, it's coming to my house. so i'm saying is brick and mortar going away? >> walmart. so walmart, brick and mortar retailer, was the second largest online retailer. so these brick and mortar guys didn't gain from online. >> melissa, i think your point is very important because you do buy online, you ship directly to the people that are receiving those gifts, that cuts down on the impulse purchases. it cuts down on the self-purchases. that's really the upside in the holiday in a typical season. melissa: do we need fewer stores out there? because while people -- i think you're right, dennis, that we're all going to spend what we're going to spend. but the way we're shopping is changing. >> sure. melissa: i think that was proved this weekend by the fact that they opened all the time and still more people shopped online. do we need fewer stores, and does that mean we're going to have fewer employees in those stores? is this a trend? >> we need fewer department stores in the middle price range. we need more discounters, more high end, but the guys in the
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middle have been aced out, and those are the ones that have to consolidate -- >> but the stores, again, i think we're going to see a trend for moving from, you know, the retail to more of a branding play. so giorgio armani's on fifth avenue because they need to because gucci's there too. whether that store's profitable, it's secondary. it's more of a branding play for them. at the end of the day, it's time efficient. if you can be online and browse through thousands of products, click it and it's sipped the next day -- shipped to you the next day, why not? >> we happened to be nearby, fao schwartz, we left screaming. i never -- i literally bought some things -- yeah, you're right. i didn't pay for anything. my mother-in-law bought a gift for my son. i literally did not spend one minute in another store the entire rest of the weekend because it's so annoying, but i'm the buyer in my house. i buy everything online. did you go inside a store? >> i didn't. >> no. >> i did, but it's kind of my
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job to be at the mall on black friday. but i did shop. that's unusual. i bought things at nordstrom and lululemon, two places where things were not on sale. melissa: that's true, and places i shop online. new reports say one in ten twitter accounts is fake. why would anyone want fake fans? you're going to meet someone who sells fake followers. we're going to ask him about that. at the end of the day, it is all about "money." [ male announcer ] here's a question for you.
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health -- melissa: money has been flying around the globe today starting in italy. one of the country's top tourist attractions is literally crumbling, walls are collapsing in the ancient city of pompei. pompei was preserved for 2,000 years under volcanic ash and is now literally a time capsule of the daily life in roman times.
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two million visitors a year, they need to 40 hop on that. on to brazil, they've decided against opening more routes for air carriers for next year's world cup. brazilian carriers can handle the millions of sports fans who are going to the fly into south america's biggest country. the matches are expected to attract more than half a million foreigners and millions of brazilians in a country with limited rail service and underp developed roads, flying's going to be the only alternative for avid soccer fans. i hope they know what they're doing. landing in france, fast feud giant burger king is invading france to give mcdonald's a run for their money. for decades burger king stood by while mickey d's served the french their royal with cheese, so burger king is finally making a move to dethrone its competition. burger king is planning an aggressive expansion and plans to create 1200 jobs in the first year alone. move over, ronald mcdonald.
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one in ten twitter followers are actually fake. that means some celebrities have tens of millions of followers who aren't even real. is it true? whht does that mean to twitter? joining me now is someone who does just this, my cheap jobs.com, the ceo, jim, what do you think about that number, one in ten? people on twitter are actually fake? do you think that's real? >> in yes, i do think it's real. i've been doing this for many, many years, at least five years, and that's the kind of metrics that we've seen. melissa: what do can you do exactly? haw does your -- how does your business work? >> it's a micro job site that has about 10,000 members. there's about 5,000 buyers and 5,000 sellers, and they go on there and compete for business, and it's a social media marketing. we focus on seo. so -- melissa: what's seo? what's seo? >> search engine optimization. it's right now especially this
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2013 now it mainly does social media marketing, so, you know, there's a lot of facebook likes and twitter followers and, you know, even google plus. just about everything that social media marketing on there that you can buy and sell. melissa: so does that mean that you find -- you know, people might come and meet on your sites who are looking for, you know, i want 5,000 new twitter followers, and somebody will say i can invent those people for you? are they all fake? >> well, and that's what happens commonly, people will contact me before and say i've been on your site, and i've seen what's going on, and business owners will say, you know, i've heard that buying followers is the thing to do, and what do you think? i'm trying to grow my business, and so i'll tell them, you know, first of all, if you're going to buy twitter followers, they're going to be fake. i mean, these are just facts. and so they -- then they say, well, i don't know if i want fake. and so i give them a wide range of options. i say, you know, you cannot buy
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fake, and you can just grow your twitter account organically, or you can buy fake. i watched your tuesday show, and, you know, you guys were talking about some of the reasons why people would buy fake, and you covered some of them. one is you guys covered was the credibility factor. two is, you know, you come across as a big shot -- melissa: a popular person who, yeah, people would want to have you on a show because you have a lot of people following you. you could say i come on, i bring my people who watch and those okay. >> right. but the third and best reason can i've been doing for years and i've built a lot of companies and i'm building a new company right now is you can -- people buy followers because you can follow more peopll. and following people now is the best way to extend that handshake, to extend that first contact to a new business person or person -- melissa: but, wait. slow down. if you are creating fake followers to then follow someone
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real, why is that, why is that advantageous to that person? why does that help your business, their business? >> was let's take a scenario. let's say you're starting a new business. the average twitter user has about 210 followers. so, you know, they'll come to me, or they'll be sitting around saying, okay, i need to grow my twitter following. i need to get business going here. so they'll start following people, you know? which is, again, we see about a 20-50% followback ratio when you follow. so let's say you followed a thousand people a day which is the twitter max. so you follow for two days you followed a thousand each, that's 2,000. but that's the max. that's the max you can do. so what people do is they say, hey, i'm going to buy 5,000, 10,000, 50,000 follower, and then they can follow a thousand people every single day -- melissa: and ask them to follow you back. but it's the whole thing, but if you're doing it from from a fake name, then it doesn't work. >> well, i mean, no, they to it
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from their main account or they'll do it, you know, they'll set up an account, but the goal here is that you have your, you know, your bio and everything, you're all set in your twitter account so when you follow people, again, you get like a 20, 30, 40% followback -- >> john, let me ask you because i'm getting confused, and we're getting a little lost in the weeds here. twitter can clean house on all of this because in my mind all this undermines their value because it's becoming apparent to everyone in the outside world and everyone who's a business person and is a casual twitter person even that half of what's going on in twitter or whatever percent, one in ten at least, is fake. >> right. melissa: i mean, twitter really needs to get a handle on this -- >> yeah. their own ceo has 30% fake in his account. that's the thing, everybody has a certain level of -- which. melissa: so you can create an algorithm to go out there and get rid of the fake followers. i mean, there are computer scientists that can do this.
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>> correct s. that was done last march with twitter, correct. melissa: so why aren't they doing more of that? i really think this could destroy their whole business model, folks like you who are encouraging these things, why don't they do that? >> well, first of all, i don't set up the accounts myself. i mean, there are sellers. you can buy twitter accounts anywhere. you can buy them on ebay, on mycheapjobs. melissa: you're associated with the business doing this. why don't they clean this up more, do you think? what's your guess? >> well, i've been talking with some players in the business, and there's a theory that maybe they're letting it ride for a little bit maybe because they need to increase numbers. melissa: there you go. >> i don't know. i don't know why they don't clean house. i have no idea. melissa: jim, thank you so much. very enlightening. we appreciate your time. >> yep. melissa: a college kid just made $24,000 by holding up this sign at a football game. can you guess why? look at it. you can never have too much "money" or too many bit coips.
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melissa: time for a little fun with spare change. bitcoin investors are finding themselves with more than a little bit of spare bitcoins in their wallet today. the price of the virtual currency is up over 5,000% from last year. bitcoin blasting through the thousand dollar price mark just as of last week. what is really going on here? scott martin is a skeptic from united investors, he joins me now. hey, if you had bitcoin today -- i'm assuming you don't -- would you just dump can the whole thing and take the one money and
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run? >> i would not even look back and don't tell anybody you did it because i'm seeing a meteoric rise that's only been met with froth and disappointment. melissa: but it deeps happening. it goes up, people make money, and then it goes down, and we're all sad. then it goes back up and what's to stop it? just because there's nothing behind it opportunity mean you can't make money off it. >> i hear you. it's a total bit show, let's say that. you know what's funny about that, melissa? that was really funny. melissa: yes, that was good. >> you know, like people have these bitcoins in their wallets, right? and the cool thing about bitcoin, i think, the one reason i think it's somewhat of a positive unlike stuff like gold which is a hedge against say the currency in your wallet is you can actually buy stuff with bitcoins. one of the coolest sites i've seen is a web site called cheap air.com, and you can actually buy plane tickets, right? the problem is, let's say one day you could buy a ferrari with a bitcoin. all the sol volatility --
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volatility, you could buy the ferrari one day and maybe only afford the key chain the next day. is that what you want of the currency in your wallet? melissa: no, but you want that in a trade if that's how you're trying to make money, i guess. it's like gambling in vegas. i'm sure that you watch college gameday on espn over the weekend because nothing is more entertaining than watching these drunk and hungover kids in the background as they're trying to do a show about football. so there's this one kid in the background holding up, and they all hold up signs about their team, this, that and the other thing, so he says hi mom, send -- and then there's that little qr code -- and also the b which anyone who watches the show knows that bitcoin. so this guy -- people sent him bitcoins. he was asking for his mom to do it, but she probably had no idea what meant. he got 22 bitcoins so he made like $24,000 at the current price over the weekend. and we know this was the other weird thing about bitcoin is you go, and you can see that person's wallet and the transactions that went on.
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what do you think about this whole thing? the whole -- >> well, it's interesting. i mean, it's super enterprising of that kid. and one thing that's helped him is the price had gone up recently, so the more bitcoins he got, the more value he got out of them which is probably something maybe people didn't know. last week, you know, bitcoin had a big week, and did you realize that you actually just gave the guy more money than maybe you intended to? but the other thing, melissa, is that's an enterprising idea, just like the bitcoin idea is, but you made a good point. the wallet itself, you can actually kind of see what's in that guy's wallet, how much money he's got. they claim this is this anonymous, kind of behind the scenes unregulated, undocumented exchange, i'm not so sure. melissa: but not really if everybody watching was able to send him money. now bruce has opened my eyes at the beginning of the show saying that the whole thing jeff beltway sos did earlier on qualify 60 minutes, he thinks
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he's not doing a drone but everybody was talking about it today, i'm wondering with this sign on gameday because anybody who likes football knows about college gameday, do you think that was a plant? do you think that was fake? do we believe this kid really printed out that sign, and it's not a bitcoin investor that's behind that and put up the sign and ten -- >> yeah, good call. melissa: i'm very suspicious of this score. >> -- story. i want to know what this that kid's gpa is, and if you look at that sign, it's actually pretty well done. how could some drunk kid on saturday morning make it look ttat precise where he could actually get it across and have the bitcoin symbol? you know what else is funny? talking about amazon, no taxes, the irs has not ruled on taxes crept, and that's an interesting point because barter and exchange is still something people like to do. melissa: for the record, we're very suspicious of that story. scott martin, thank you so much. >> see ya. melissa: $4,000 for a bottle of whiskey. people are paying for the good stuff, and this man is making a
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fortune. you can never have too much "money." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ hi honey, did you get e toaster cozy?
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melissa: whether it is wall street or main street, here is who made money, a british man, threw an old hard drive judge i into the trash that contained more than 9 million in bitcoin. the device is now buried under mountains of garbage in wales. >> and wi whiskey maker is back. just released 273 bottles of celebrated sour mash whiskey, mick ter president said all
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bottles are accounted for. the willis report is next. >> hello i am gerri willis, on the willis report -- >> it is cyber monday with specials on everything. we'll tell you how to know when you are getting a good deal. >> the relaunch of the obamacare web site. the administration said it is working find am but health insurers say, it's not. >> and amazon's drone delivery. a pr stunt or something that could happen? we're watching out for you tonight on the willis report. >> welcome to the willis report, your show, your mon

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